And We're Back!

Hello everyone, sorry it's been so long since I've posted on here (despite promising many more posts than the two I've submitted since the depressingly awful superbowl). Quick side note, every time I see the Celtics play on the road in the post season, it reminds me of the Superbowl. It's just mind-numbingly ridiculous that teams that can be that good at home could suddenly look so bad on the road. The Patriots weren't terrible on the road obviously, just really bad at the worst possible time.

Now that SpyGate D-Day is upon us, I thought it a good time to get back on the horse and chime in with some overdo comments (if I got paid for this I think I could start relating to why the SportsGuy seems to go weeks without submitting more than a podcast).

1. SpyGate - I actually feel let down. I didn't want to hear about a Rams walkthrough tape, but I did want to hear about the Steelers in the AFC Championship, because I hate the Steelers so much. I get the feeling there was a little more than what they were punished for, but not enough that Roger Gooddell couldn't sweep it under the carpet. So that ends that. Now what's next for Spygate?
• Meet your new most-hated man in Boston: John Tomase of the Boston Herald. John Tomase, the guy that looks like his sources all came from the World of Warcraft, was the writer who "broke" the story the #@$! day before the Superbowl about the Patriots taping a walkthrough of the Rams with his 1 whole source. I know times have changed a bit, but in my college journalism class, it was grilled into me that I needed three sources for a story, especially one where allegations were involved.
• Dale Arnold HAAAAATTTTTEEEESSSSS John Tomase right now and he's having a very difficult time saying it without actually saying it. And I liked the fact that Michael Holley, a former journalist, now puff piece sports book writer, took the Herald to task for it.
• Right now, it's 2:30pm on Tuesday, and Gregg Easterbrook, Bob Kravitz, Mike Fish, and so many others are getting ready to write their "They still cheated and should be stoned to death like the blasphemous sons of whores that they are" columns. Their saving grace is that Senator Arlen Specter just spit up his Tapioca pudding when he heard Roger Gooddell say that nothing new was learned about taping signals and will surely come out to denounce the Patriots tomorrow. He will subsequently work day and night to get a bill ratified that will officially recognize the Philadelphia Eagles as Superbowl Champions.
• 2:35 PM, still no story of any kind about the SpyGate press conference on the Boston Herald website. But of course it couldn't bump more important stories off the front page like this gem: "Vatican: It's OK to Believe in Aliens" (I'm not even making that up). According to the new anti-Herald Dale Arnold, they didn't even send someone to New York for the press conference. Wonder why?
  

2. NFL Draft - Is there anything more over hyped than the NFL draft? I did watch the first round (though to be honest I flipped over and watched Glory...one of those movies that when you click by it, you're obligated to watch...kind of like Schindler's List and Roadhouse). I'm pretty happy the first round times were cut to speed it up. It was almost worth watching 5 people on the ESPN set talk nonsense about players they are currently mis-reading. I think Mel Kiper is the sports equivalent of a New England meteorologist. He's wrong constantly, but occasionally even the weather guy will call for a sunny day that is.

3. I thought the Patriots did well in the draft for what that's worth. I had been holding out hope that Chris Long would somehow fall to the Chiefs at #5 and the Patriots would deal for him, which is apparently what they were hoping as well. But Mayo was a good pick. The downside is that I can't watch Monday Night Countdown any more after games where May has a sack or interception because I really don't think I'm up for the next 10 years worth of Chris Berman "Hold the Mayo" jokes. And I felt really good every time they showed the top 10 pick board with the teams' respective 2007 records. That was just gravy.

4. A nice surprising and refreshing change of pace was this week's NFL power rankings (coincidence that Sportsline, ESPN, and SI.com all came out with them this week?). Instead of the "well the SB champs are #1 until someone knocks them off" nonsense, everyone put the Giants around #5. Well done. The Evil Patriots are #1, ensuring the hatred of every non-Patriots fan will continue to boil right through opening weekend (no national Patriots game? They have a 16 game winning streak on the line, were AFC Champs, and not national game. We'll call it even for the Patriots allowing a guy on IR to practice back in 2001, which was a revelation from Matt Walsh today).

5. Does anyone else get the feeling that we're going to remember the 2008 Bruins playoffs more warmly than the 2008 Boston Celtics post season?

6. I love Bill Russell. Let me get that out of the way. BUT...you're as proud of Kevin Garnett as you are of your own children? Does that mean when you take them to games, that at the end of the third quarter they stand up and tell you they're leaving? And what does that mean that you'll share one of your championships with him? Will he get a ring from you? Does Paul Pierce now start feeding Tommy Heinsohn a bottle of Jack before each game (to go with the one he finishes before half time) so that maybe he'll get the same offer? And what if Larry Bird told Ray Allen he was as proud of him as his kids? How would Ray Ray respond to that from the guy who only acknowledged his daughter when he wrote her name on support checks? Yeah...I went there. Love Larry Bird the basketball player and he'll always be my favorite...I probably won't nominate him for father of the year though. Of course he seems to be a notch above Karl Malone (check out ESPN.com's Jemele Hill's column on Karl's relationship with his kids from other mothers...not so heartwarming).

7. One more thing on SpyGate. I guess I should have seen this coming. John Tomase wraps up the most hated man in Boston. But, Black Ops Commander Ernie Adams will be the media punching bag until he agrees to come out from under deep cover to explain his role with the Patriots. He's the one that received the tapes, and it's been speculated for a long time now that he does the dirty work for our evil overlord Bill Belichick.

8. 60% of the 35000+ people who voted on ESPN.com dissaprove of the recent handling of SpyGate by the NFL. If you had the New England States as the only states that would vote for "yes", you would be wrong. Michigan has our back baby!! I guess when your team is the Lions but there is a winning team with a star Michigan quarterback, it's time to hitch a ride on the Evil Patriots bandwagon.

9. Is it blasphemous for me to secretly wish for two straight Red Sox seasons where they finish in last place so that that bandwagon will clear out a little? Possibly my biggest pet peeve of the last 10 years is the whole notion of "Red Sox Nation" which started as a goof fan-based movement because of how many transplants that can't afford to live in this !@#$ state any more show up to away games. When they started selling membership cards for it, I (taking a note from the SportsGuy) "threw up in my mouth". When they held a rigged election for President of Red Sox Nation, no one was surprised that massively over-exposed, shameless self-promoter, Jerry Remy got the gig. Even then I was letting it go. But then Jordan Furniture put out their ridiculously impossible sweepstakes commercial where they have to not only make the world series again this year, but also sweep whoever they play, and used Jerry Remy (as Red Sox Nation president) to call whichever brother that is that didn't know it was time to retire, and beg "on behalf of Red Sox Nation" to extend the sweepstakes another week. Since the first time I hear the term Red Sox Nation (it was 1999, the road trip that ended with Pedro striking out 17 in Yankee Stadium), I have never introduced myself as a member because it's the equivalent of putting a pink hat on my head. But, that commercial was the nail in the coffin for me. I haven't been to a game since 2005 (because the tickets that used to be available now go to the prospective clients of John Hancock Insurance and the friends of Citizens Bank). So I figure that two straight years of last place finishes should clean out all of the people who go to the game so that they can call their friends on the cell phones and wait for the wave to get to their section.

10. Tony Dungy is an ass. We get it. You're a man of high moral character that does everything the "right way" all the time. But even the sanctimonious jackasses of the world start to rub people the wrong way when their self-righteousness becomes elitist judging of others for not striving to be as morally superior as yourself.

Thanks for checking in and I'm promising "for realz" that there the updates will be more frequent and no doubt I'll have plenty more on SpyGate tomorrow when the columnists dismiss today's events to call for the banishment of Belichick from coaching ever again.

Also thanks to all of the readers that emailed me with thoughts, questions, and threats if I didn't post something soon. Your warm wishes and fear-mongering tactics brought me here today.